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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23347798">A Little Off</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/writinginthesecrettrees/pseuds/writinginthesecrettrees'>writinginthesecrettrees</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, F/M, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 09:22:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,303</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23347798</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/writinginthesecrettrees/pseuds/writinginthesecrettrees</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Things are a little off with Sammy. He’s been secretive, and at first Dean thinks it’s normal kid stuff. Puberty or something - Sam’s twelve, and they <i>just</i> had an awkward talk about wet dreams and “just wake me up so we can change the sheets, all right? I don’t wanna sleep in it.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dean Winchester/Original Female Character(s), Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>72</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Little Off</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Things are a little off with Sammy. He’s been secretive, and at first Dean thinks it’s normal kid stuff. Puberty or something - Sam’s twelve, and they <i>just</i> had an awkward talk about wet dreams and “just wake me up so we can change the sheets, all right? I don’t wanna sleep in it.” </p>
<p>
  <i>(sam blushing furiously as he nodded, red on his cheeks like the girls dean sweet talks into the backseat and out of their panties, makes dean’s belly hot with anger at his baby brother for making him think these things)</i>
</p>
<p>Maybe Dean could believe that Sammy’s just exploring himself a bit, looking for privacy they can’t find in motels and shared beds. But there’s more to it than Sammy disappearing after school, coming back just before dinner in a rush to finish his homework. There’s clothing, vanishing from Dean’s duffle and showing up the next day freshly washed. There’s Sam, watching him with dark eyes when he flirts with pretty girls.</p>
<p>
  <i>(“please, dean, can’t you stay in and watch a movie with me? please?” sam’s voice high, begging the way a girl does when dean’s got his tongue on her clit and two fingers in her pussy and she’s begging for his dick and dean can’t stay in even though he wants to, wants to paint his baby brother with bruises for making him feel these things)</i>
</p>
<p>Dean usually sleeps late after a night out with a girl, likes to stay in bed long after he wakes up, thinks about soft breasts and intoxicating kisses when he pushes his hand down his pants and jerks himself lazily until he’s about to come, then finishes himself off in the shower thinking about falling asleep with his arms around Sam. But Sammy’s been acting off lately, and getting up early on weekends to sneak out of the motel without Dean. </p>
<p>
  <i>(little brother sneaking out like the girls dean talks into breaking their curfews - “my dad doesn’t let me date yet,” whispered between kisses under the school bleachers when dean’s already got his hand up under her bra - and how is dean supposed to keep sammy safe from the monsters of the world when he doesn’t know where he is)</i>
</p>
<p>It’s past noon when he finds Sam in a cornfield, stalks tall overhead rustling in the breeze. Sam’s got a bucket of water and a pile of Dean’s clothes, so focused on scrubbing at his shirt from last night he doesn’t notice Dean getting closer. And Dean’s so intent on Sammy that he doesn’t notice the hole dug in the soft ground, almost falls in. Sam’s got more than just Dean’s clothes from last night - got his date dead in the dirt, too. </p>
<p>
  <i>(oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck)</i>
</p>
<p>Sam hears him stumble, looks up at him like a deer caught in the headlights, like he used to when he was five and Dean caught him stealing Twinkies meant for Dean’s school snacks. The water in the bucket is stained pink and his hands are stained red and his mouth is opening and shutting like he’s trying to talk but no sound is coming out.</p>
<p>
  <i>(girls gone missing just before they leave town and dean’s never thought twice about it but here’s one of them and her family’s gonna be looking for her - thank fuck they won’t be looking for him thank fuck he was her dirty secret - good girl didn’t want people knowing she was getting fucked by the bad boy who just blew into town - how many sammy?)</i>
</p>
<p>“Whatcha doing, Sammy?”</p>
<p>Sam’s shaking harder than the corn stalks over their heads, still won’t - can’t? - speak.</p>
<p>“Know you don’t like me going out with them, but isn’t this a bit… extreme?”</p>
<p>Sam’s eyes get wider, whites all around. “I-I’m just cleaning - I didn’t do this...”</p>
<p>Dean shakes his head. “Sammy. I caught you, literally red-handed. Wanna try again?”</p>
<p>
  <i>(sammy shaking shaking shaking like a leaf and breathing fast, fast as the dead girl did last night when he was behind her with his hand on her neck and his dick in her pussy and her cheek pressed hard into the soft dirt of the cornfield and her hair, soft and long and brown and falling across everything, and her slender back, and the little gasps and grunts he fucks out of her are just like the sounds he wrings out of sammy when they wrestle.)</i>
</p>
<p>“How long have you been doing it, huh, Sammy? Killing the chicks I get off with? Why do you do it, Sammy?”</p>
<p>And Dean could keep going but Sam’s scrambled to his feet and he throws a shoe at Dean’s head. Kid’s got good aim, would have hit him if Dean hadn’t dodged. “I <i>don’t,</i> Dean! You do it! I just… just clean up after you.”</p>
<p>
  <i>(tears in his eyes, like the tears in hers last night when he had her on her back in the dirt after she pushed him off and slapped him for saying the wrong name. “isn’t sammy your brother? you’re sick–” and she couldn’t say anything else because dean’s got his hands around her throat, squeezing tight while she claws at his arms but he never bothered to take his shirt off so she only gets flannel. “you don’t say his name,” he says, gets one hand free and slaps her hard.)</i>
</p>
<p>Dean reels, takes a step backwards, and Sam steps towards him. “I’ve been covering up for you for months! <i>Months,</i> Dean! Covering with Dad when he calls while you’re out screwing any girl who’ll have you, covering up all the… the blood, and mess, and <i>god</i> you don’t even <i>try</i> to hide the bodies and now you’re saying <i>I</i> did this? <i>Screw you, Dean.”</i></p>
<p>Sam glares at him through his tears, stands with clenched fists and panting from his outburst.</p>
<p>
  <i>(she panted just like that, when dean took his other hand off her throat after she stops struggling and her eyes started to roll up because she doesn’t get to die that easily, not when she saw the secret dark corners of his soul and was stupid enough to notice, panted beneath him and he’d fuck her again if he thought she was willing but it’s a point of pride that he doesn’t take anyone who isn’t begging for it. when she catches her breath, starts to try to wriggle away, he pulls his knife and slashes out, a deep cut across the throat spraying him with brilliant red blood. she’s already forgotten by the time he gets back in the car, leaves her body in the cornstalks and drives back to his bed and sammy.)</i>
</p>
<p>Memories of this girl and others are rushing in, filling his head with blood and weapons (once laughing, when he let her think she got away before taking aim and dropping her with a headshot at fifty feet, just like the zombies in the arcade that Sam begged him to go to) and through it all Sam withdrawing and clinging close all at once and fuck.</p>
<p><i>“Fuck!”</i> Dean falls to his knees, hands tugging at his hair, and Sam squats down next to him, puts a hand whisper-soft on his back, somehow takes the weight when Dean falls into him and comes apart.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Things are a little off with Sammy, and the off part is Dean. It started months ago, Dean going off on another “date” and ignoring Sam flipping him off as he left, then coming home with his clothing covered in dirt and falling into bed, unaware. They left town in the morning, Dad calling just after sunrise, and Sam didn’t think about it until he saw the news a few days later - a girl found dead, strangled, and no one knew who did it except Sam remembered Dean pointing her out to him three days ago.</p>
<p>The next time Dean has a date, Sam sneaks out after him, steals a bike and pedals furiously through town to find his brother with a girl spread out beneath him in the backseat. Sam’s too far away to hear them, but he sees her writhing under his brother and he hates her, and when Dean suddenly sits upright and slams his fist into her face all Sam can feel is satisfaction and that sends him running, racing back to the motel to hide trembling under the blankets. Dean joins him not much later, falls into the bed and slings an arm across Sam’s waist before falling into a heavy sleep, and Sam lays awake until light peeks in around the curtains.</p>
<p>He can’t stay, has to know for sure, so he wriggles out from under Dean’s arm. Grabs Dean’s clothes from last night off the floor, and the rest of the laundry too, and shoves it all into a duffle before heading out. He finds the body left unhidden at the side of the road, and <i>“fuck”</i> it’s a long, hot trip, dragging her back into field far enough that no one will see him digging.  When he’s done, the sun is setting and there’s a bruised and battered body in a shallow grave, just deep enough that he was able to bury a roadkill rabbit above it in case the cops bring out dogs to search.</p>
<p>Dean shakes him and shakes him when he gets back, full dark outside and duffle full of clean clothes and all he can say when Dean asks where he’s been is “out.”</p>
<p>It becomes routine before long. Try to keep Dean in with him - that’s unchanged, but there’s new meaning in it now - and when that fails go out and cover up the inevitable. Pick a fight when Dad comments that he’s gotten better at digging up graves the next time they have a ghost to salt and burn. Try not to cry when Dean doesn’t kill the girl and she shows up at school the next day, looking smug and satisfied and then Dean takes her out the next night too, even though Sam begs him to stay in, watch a movie with him, anything. Does cry later, in the shower, trying to wash away the satisfaction he felt with every shovelful of dirt he dumped on her body when Dean slit her throat on the second date.</p>
<p>He’s in the middle of yet another clean-up, burying Dean’s last date where she died in a cornfield and scrubbing as much blood out of Dean’s clothes as he can before hitting the laundromat, when Dean finds him.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Things are very off with Dean. He can feel his mind unravelling, feel the earth crumbling away and the only real thing left is Sammy and Dean clings to him. Baby brother arms around him and Dean should pull away, that’s only allowed at night with the plausible deniability of sleep but he can’t move, can barely breathe, needs Sam to hold him, needs to know Sammy’s with him and won’t leave.</p>
<p>Whispers of <i>“don’t leave”</i> and <i>“sorry”</i> and <i>“stay”</i> fall between giant gulping breaths and Dean’s only half aware of saying anything.</p>
<p>“Never” and “I don’t care” and “always” are the replies, until Sam pulls back slightly, forces Dean’s head up out of his shoulder and presses their foreheads together and Dean falls silent, pulled out of his own head and all he can see is Sammy eyes.</p>
<p>“I’m <i>glad</i> they’re dead,” Sammy says and Dean starts to shake his head, but Sam grips him hard, fingers digging into his shoulders and the pain is grounding. “I hate them. Every girl you ever look at, every girl you think about, I hate them all and I’m glad you killed them. I just…” </p>
<p>Sam slumps and his hands fall away from Dean. Dean whimpers at the loss.</p>
<p>“I just wish you’d, like, <i>try</i> to hide the bodies? Or wash up, or something. Do you know how exhausting it is?”</p>
<p>“... no?” </p>
<p>“Well, it is. ‘Cause you can’t just dig the hole, you have to fill it up again and I swear most of the girls weigh more than I do so getting them in isn’t exactly a picnic and then I have to make sure there’s no evidence and wash your clothes and clean your knives and once I had to dig a bullet out of a girl’s <i>brain,</i> Dean, I had to go digging in her head for it–”</p>
<p>“Why d’you do it, Sammy?” </p>
<p>“Why do you?”</p>
<p>Dean searches for something, <i>anything</i> other than the truth because Sammy might be okay with the murder but he won’t, he <i>can’t</i> be okay with the reason, and he opens his mouth to lie but it comes out true. “They aren’t you.”</p>
<p>Sam’s arms around his neck, soft lips pressed to his in a kiss that is technically terrible but perfect because it’s Sammy, mean that the truth is maybe not as terrible as he thought. Dean’s arms close around Sam, a hand stroking up to cup the back of his head and hold him in place.</p>
<p>Then Dean leans forward, tips them over so Sam’s beneath him, head pillowed by the mound of dirt that still needs to be shovelled over a dead girl, and Dean grins as he sets about teaching Sam the proper way to kiss.</p>
<p>
  <i>(sammy under him, arching up as dean strokes over the roof of his mouth with his tongue, tastes like sweat and spit and heaven and better than any girl dean’s ever had and dean chases the sammy taste down the side of his neck. sammy’s hands tugging at his hair and a high whine coming from the throat dean nips at, and dean’s never burying his want in anyone but sammy ever again.)</i>
</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Things are a little off with his sons, and John doesn’t know what and he’s scared to find out.</p>
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